********************* Changes in the next release  ****
********************* Release 4.3 *************************************
New build system, CDAT is now installed under CDAT/VERSION/bin 
New Fonts system: most ttf fonts work now!
New direct postscript output
Hatch/pattern output working (see known bug though)
Improved VCDAT
New Package: Thermo
EZTemplate
genutil.filters
going away from pyfort, using f2py instead
pydebug included
mpeg output
generalized grid support
improved web documentation

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a known bug in cairo (the postscript rendering library) that will
cause the output to be wrong if you are using both
pattern/hatches and dashed lines


********************* Release 4.0 *************************************

----------------------------
MAJOR CHANGES TO THE RELEASE
----------------------------

*- Support for Generalized Grids, regridding possible using the SCRIP regridder
(source code provided but not installed)

*- Template Editor, let you resize, drag, drop object on your VCS Canvas

*- Major Overhaull of the VCDAT GUI, with template and graphic methods
editors. Various mode of use (variable browsing, computation mode, graphics
mode). 

*- Page Layout Editor available in VCDAT

*- More projection available (GCTP package), total of 28 new types of
projection, each with full parameters control

*- Improved install process

*- New packages: filter, vertical interpolation, IaGraph, f2py, R/Rpy, VTK
(Linux only, and not supported), thermo (thermodynamic diagrams)

*- Full list of Changes available in files Changes_3.3_to_4.* (Open Office, csv and
pdf formats)

-------------------------
KNOWN BUGS
-------------------------

*- There is apparently a bug on the Mac X server, this forces the user to move
the VCS canvas window in order for the threads to start. If not the 
application might hang.

*- Beta version does not have support for inline scripting from VCDAT, final
version and some future beta wiull have full support.


********************* Release 3.3 *************************************
01. vcs plotting now as at-plotting-time overwritting capabilities, i.e, you can change a graphic method or template attribute as you plot by passing it to the plot command
02. vcs text function let you know draw string on the fly, also accepts colors argument passed a colornames
03 vcs canvas object have a new function "match_color" which allows the user to get the color in the colormap (in use or passed) that is closest from its desirted color
04. rank function now available in genutil.statstics

********************* Release 3.3 (10/01/2002)  ************************
01. Meshfill support is now complete (for graphical output)
       all is done at the C level, projection are authorized as well as
       axes transformations. MUCH faster than the old python based support
02. CompasrisonsStatistics contrib package added (PCMDI's compall)
03. VariablesMatcher, VariableConditioner objects added, allows easy regrid/masking 
       of datasets for comparison, module: cdutil
04. Build changes have removed the need for users to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
05. Now available on AIX.
06. genutil.statistics now has percentiles and median functions
07. genutil now has grower function (add dimensions to MV so they have matching shapes)
08. genutil.statistics: fixed a bug when input datasets had different masks 
       (now uses the union of both masks)
09. pyclimate package added to the contrib, which is a Python package designed
       to accomplish some usual tasks during the analysis of climate variability
       using Python. It provides functions to perform some simple IO operations,
       operations with COARDS-compliant netCDF files, EOF analysis, SVD and CCA
       analysis of coupled data sets, some linear digital filters, kernel based
       probabilitydensity function estimation and access to DCDFLIB.C library from
       Python.
10. Fixed the Read Script File file browser dialog "File of type". The
       text said "Search for netCDF" and "Search for GrADS". This has
       been replaced with "Search fo VCS file" and "Search for Python files".
11. Sync'ed the continents to work with the Page Editor. In the process,
       I fixed the canvas update to work with threads
12. Ran Insure++ on code to clean up memory leaks in XGKS and VCS.
13. Fixed "open" bug. That is, fixed bug for when x.open() called. It no
       longer exists out of python from the command line.
14. Can now print a VCS Canvas plot, produced in background mode,
       to an output file (i.e., postscript, cgm, gif, or eps.).
15. Reordered the include files to find the VCS include files first.
       This solves the problem of VCS not compiling on Solaris 2.8
       platforms. Solaris 2.8 platforms have a project.h file located in
       the /usr/lib directory. project.h is also an include file for VCS.
       In any case, forcing the VCS include files to be seen first, solves
       this problem and should have no effect on other platforms.
16. Bug fixes for the DEC platform. The low-level primative attribute settings
       now work for the DEC platform.
17. Fixed the legend label to be positioned at the bottom right corner of
       the plot. It will also move with the legend when the legend is
       altered by the user.
18. Now the user does not have to specify the DISPLAY variable in order to run
       VCS or VCDAT. That is the user can now run the VCS module from the
       command-line, script, background mode, or from VCDAT without specifying
       the environment variable DISPLAY. That is, XOpenDisplay is now set
       to ":0.0" or "localhost:0.0" for VCS and for Tkinter.
19. This function displays graphics segments, which are currently stored in
       the frame buffer, on the VCS Canvas. That is, if the plot function
       was called with the option bg = 1 (i.e., background mode), then the
       plot is produced in the frame buffer and not visible to the user.
       In order to view  the graphics segments, this function will copy
       the contents of the frame buffer to the VCS Canvas, where the
       graphics can be viewed by the user.
20. Added outfill and outline to the browser interface. They are now part of the
       graphics method pulldown selection. Also add a graphics method attribute
       settings interface for the two graphics method so the user can
       change their attributes.
21. Added the capability for low-level primatives to accept Numeric arrays for
       their list of x and y axis point values.
22. Bug fix for generating more than 140 plots. That is, commented out
        Py_DECREF(dict);
---
       This DECREF causes memory problems for Python if the
       user chooses to generate more than 140 plots in a Python loop.
       That is, needed memory is removed then overwritten, which causes
       Python to give the undefined global name error for "range", "len",
       or some other globally defined Python key word.
23. vcdat_teaching_script_file.py now work with appropriate graphics methods.
       That is, you can now run "python vcdat_teaching_script_file.py" to replay
       what was done in the VCDAT session.

       Note: vcdat_recording_script_file.py worked because it did not rely on the
               ASD.scr file.
24. Show the index values for 1D axis variables
25. Updated the "Alter Plot" GUI to reflect the minor ticks settings and the
       axis type (i.e., Linear or Log10). Currently, the user can only view the
       axis representation. Later when time permits, I will change the "View"
       text input window to an "Edit" text input window. This will let the user
       specify (via a Python dictionary) the location of the axis label and the
       label text string. For example, { -90: "south pole", 0: "equator",
       90: "north pole"}.
26. Modified the VCDAT module to track user directory, file, and variable requests.
       It also logs the user's wall clock and cpu time. Examples: "vcdat -u",
       "vcdat -h".
27. Updated the VCS initial.attributes file to Mike Wehner's initial.attibutes file.
28. The Boxfill legend labels can be set with a list or a dictionary. For
       example: [0, 10, 20, 30, 40] or {40:'some text', 50:'some more text'}.
29. boxfill.legend={.5:'hi'} will now work if the legend is vertical
       or horizontal.
30. Colormap bug fix. The default colormap can now be changed,
       then saved as a new colormap.
31. VCDAT option menu: -h, print out help menu; -n, turn splash screen off, -u, turn
       user tracking mode on. See item 17.
32. Corrected the legend when plotting log based boxfill plots.
33. Updated the X and Y axes, so that the user can modify and
       change the axes values.
34. The graphics method's data world coordinates (i.e., datawc_x1, datawc_x2,
       datawc_y1, and datawc_y2) will override the incoming variable's coordinates.
35. VCDAT has a new icon to bookmark files, works just like the directories
36. Beta DODS support on Linux, build using --dods=/path/to/DODS/directory
37. gplot now builds automatically
38. various utilies necessary to produce GIF output are also now provided as part
       of the install process.
39. VCS template object now have scale, reset, move and moveto associated function
40. added cddump utility (ncdump like utility that works on any type of file that
       cdms can open) 
41. VCDAT has new icon functions: grower, mask, getmask, less, greater, equal, not, standard deviation

********************* Release 3.2 (4/15/2002)  ************************
1. Revised build system allows for installation into an existing Python.
   Please see README.txt to learn the new installation system.
   (Paul Dubois). DRS and QL support are not built by default, unless you
   use the --PCMDI option.
2. In genutil.statistics, the linearegression now can return std error
   and probabilities for regression constant (in addition of the regression coef).
   Power users that used this capability should be aware that the syntax slightly
   changed, see the doc string. (Charles Doutriaux)
3. Contributed package shgrid, cssgrid, dsgrid  added (Clyde Dease)
   See "INTRODUCTION TO NGMATH" below for descriptions.
   After installation, go to the Test subdirectory of each and run python shgridtest.py;
   a documentation file will be produced as a byproduct.
4. Updated averager so it now takes integer for single axis operation.
   Updated averager so the weights options are now "unweighted" and "weighted" instead of 
   "equal" and "generate"; old options still work.
   Updated averager so the weights keyword now works.
   Updated the doc strings of averager so they reflect the previous 2 changes.
   Updated genutil.statistics so weights options are now compatible with cdutil.averager.

5. Solution to the high CPU usage problem when displaying a VCS Canvas. 
   Modification to the VCS Canvas event mainloop was done to avoid high CPU 
   usage while the VCS Canvas sat idle. This modification has no other 
   effects on the graphics or the VCS Canvas behavior.

6. Extensive improvements to the VCDAT browser. These are detailed at:
   http://esg.llnl.gov/cdat/GUI_Modifications.html

   INTRODUCTION TO NGMATH

        The ngmath library is a collection of interpolators and approximators
for one-dimensional, two-dimensional and three-dimensional data. The packages, 
which were obtained from NCAR, are:

  natgrid -- a two-dimensional random data interpolation package based on 
              Dave Watson's nngridr. NOT built by default in CDAT due to 
             compile problems on some platforms. Works on linux.

  dsgrid --  a three-dimensional random data interpolator based on a
             simple inverse distance weighting algorithm.

  fitgrid -- an interpolation package for one-dimensional and two-dimensional 
             gridded data based on Alan Cline's Fitpack. Fitpack uses splines 
             under tension to interpolate in one and two dimensions.  
             NOT IN CDAT.

  csagrid -- an approximation package for one-dimensional, two-dimensional and 
             three-dimensional random data based on David Fulker's Splpack. 
             csagrid uses cubic splines to calculate its approximation function.

